82-year-old grandmother critically wounded by stray bullet (video)

CHESTER — An 82-year-old Delaware County woman was sitting on the sofa inside her East End home when she was shot in the neck by a stray bullet during a barrage of gunfire that also critically wounded a young man Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.

Authorities said the critically wounded man was believed to be the intended target. He was found unresponsive on the street, with a gunshot wound to the head, according to sources.

Police Commissioner Joe Bail said investigators were back at the scene along West 22nd Street in Chester Wednesday night, equipped with lasers to pinpoint the trajectory of the eight or nine bullets he estimated were fired in the tight neighborhood of row homes at about 1:30 p.m.

Bail called the woman, identified by family as Edith Hardy, “an innocent victim of random violence.”

Both victims were rushed to Crozer-Chester Medical Center. Hardy was in critical condition and expected to survive, family and friends said Wednesday night. The unidentified man was on life support, sources said.

Authorities have no motives or suspects.

“This is an ongoing investigation,” Bail said, lauding what he called “great cooperation” between city and county detectives.

“Fortunately, they’ve been getting a lot of help from the community,” he said.

Still, he appealed to anyone with information to come forward.

Though some of Hardy’s family described hearing about the vans of gunmen descending on the neighborhood, Bail said, “That information is not consistent with anything we’ve been told.”

According to police and family members, Hardy was sitting on the sofa in the living room of the house at the corner of 22nd and Crozer streets, her home for 14 years, when she was shot.

Sisters Passion Walker, 11, and Natalia Dallard, 9, were just guessing when they said that their great-great-aunt Edith was probably watching either Jerry Springer or Maury Povich on the big flat-screen television when the bullet struck her in the neck.

The sisters do not live with Hardy, but Walker said they spend most of their time with her.

“We were in shock,” Walker said.

Sweetly, Dallard went on to mimic how Hardy always sat in the cream-colored loveseat in the living room by the front window, her back very straight and her legs crossed.

They pulled back a piece of plastic taped to the inside window, revealing a crackled pane and a hole a little larger than the size of a quarter. The outside window screen bore a much smaller hole.

“She was the only one here when it happened,” Walker said.

The sisters were joined at the house by some members of Hardy’s church, including Evangeline Rhodes, who lives in the 200 block of West 22nd Street.

“I heard about 10 shots. I had just put my grandson to sleep. I laid him on the sofa and I went upstairs to do some Bible study,” Rhodes said. “My nephew ran in and said, ‘The church lady got shot, the tall one.’”

Rhodes said she just ran to the door and stood, holding the 1-year-old boy.

“I seen them putting her on the stretcher ... my heart stopped,” Rhodes said. “I just can’t believe that people are just shooting like that. It’s ridiculous.”

Rhodes said her 4-year-old grandson, who was also with her Wednesday afternoon, kept talking about it, saying, “They shot Sister Hardy.”

Family and friends described Hardy as an active member of Refuge Apostolic Church who raised six children and fostered 76 children.

“How can these older people ever feel safe ... this happened in her own home,” said Ron Lewis, a resident of Sun Village and a minister with Freedom Baptist Church. He said he was talking about that very issue with city leaders Tuesday night.

Lewis likened a recent incident of gunfire in his own neighborhood as “like Beirut.”

The double shooting was the third incident involving gunfire on Wednesday, the second in the same general area.

At 3 a.m., an unidentified man was shot and injured while in the 300 block of West 22nd Street. He was listed in stable condition suffering from facial injuries.

Then, hours later, another man was shot near Rose Street. That victim was reportedly in stable condition at Crozer.